Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I never write something and consciously embed political commentary or any other kind of commentary. I just try to get the characters into a room or out of a room, or onto the plane, or through the grocery store. The political stuff, the class stuff, the gender stuff, is in the air, it's in their interactions, because it's there for all of us. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Gender

Try

" I don't think everyone is equally haunted by high school, but I also don't think it's unusual to be. "

" You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

You

Know

" For most of my life - well, maybe half of my life, but basically until I was in my mid-20s - I wrote stories. From the time I was 5 or 6 until I was 25. And I read a lot of stories during that time. "

" People who think my books are autobiographical, which they're not, credit me with having a much better memory than I do. I do, however, have a powerful imagination. "

" I just write the books that I think I would want to read. "

" I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Special

Try

" There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am. "

" Sometimes, there can be a slightly condescending assumption that anything unlikable about a female character is a mistake, as if they're a contestant in a beauty pageant and have to seem charming and upbeat all the time. "

" Something that's interesting is how my perspective on different events can change over time even though the events themselves haven't changed. As I get older, I interpret something differently, or I can even interpret a person differently. "

" I think there are people who think 'high school was the peak of my life,' and there are people who think it was dreadful, and then, I think most people are somewhere in between. I do think that it's normal to experience strong emotions during that time, and I think those emotions stay with you. "

" The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention. "

" I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Much

" My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology. "

" It's never that hard for me to imagine what it must feel like to be someone else, whether it's an American teenage girl or a Japanese octogenarian man. "

" I don't think I anticipated supporting myself as a writer... I expected I would have to be a teacher or a journalist, that I wouldn't just write full time. It's such a part of my life, and in some ways, it's a very unromantic part of my life. It's almost, to me, like breathing. I don't think about whether I like it or not. "

" I do think I was trying to entertain the reader more than I was trying to purge myself. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Think

Trying

" The nightmare reviewer is the reviewer who has some sort of agenda that precludes him or her responding sincerely to the book. Often, that agenda is seeming clever and/or taking someone who has received more than her fair share of attention down a notch. "

" There's an ongoing 'water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink' situation at my house in terms of both pens and paper. "

" I feel like if you read something, and it makes you so curious about a topic that you then go read something else, that's exciting. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Feel

Curious

" I always wrote from a very young age, literally from the time I learned how to read and write. "

" In 2013, before the publication of my fourth novel, I met with a stylist at Nordstrom. Since then, I've rarely shopped for 'event clothes' on my own. I usually do it with my sisters or a friend; if I'm alone, I take pictures of myself in the dressing room and text them to my sisters. "

" There are always interesting, innovative, dynamic stories being written and being published. They're not always being prominently published, but they're being published. "

" High school is very intense for everyone. But at a boarding school, because you're there 24 hours a day, everything gets magnified. "

" Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am. "

" I grew up in Cincinnati, the birthplace of the creamiest and most delicious ice cream with the hugest chocolate chips. Graeter's used to be available only regionally, but an extravagant thing you could do was overnight-ship six pints to another state, in dry ice. "

" I see 'Eligible' as a homage, and I see 'Pride and Prejudice' as a perfect book. You can dispute whether this project is a good idea, but you can't dispute my fondness for the novel. "

" Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist. "

" Well, I think that if you sincerely try to imagine what life is like for another person - not in a mocking way, not in a satirical way, but in a sincere, compassionate way - I don't think that's exploitive. "

" I'm so trying to give up meat. "

Curtis Sittenfeld

Give

Meat